


return of the intern

by orphan_account



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil and Dana are BFFs, Gen, everyone is useless without Dana, hasn't taken over yet, no seriously, strex is a thing but like, this is literally fluff all over the place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 09:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dana finally gets out of the vastness of the desert and finds Night Vale again, the first thing she thinks of is the swivel chair at the station and that Cecil had better damn well let her take a nap in it, after the shit she’s been through in the name of journalism.</p>
<p>(Spoilers to, like, episode 30 (Dana). Set maybe anywhere after A Beautiful Dream.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	return of the intern

**Author's Note:**

> written after seeing [this prompt](http://windowsthickwithfrost.tumblr.com/post/63909052203/dana-gets-trapped-in-the-dog-park-in-poetry-week) on tumblr.

When Dana finally gets out of the vastness of the desert and finds Night Vale again, the first thing she thinks of is the swivel chair at the station and that Cecil had better damn well let her take a nap in it, after the shit she’s been through in the name of journalism.

She’s standing in the middle of the highway and she can see the outline of the Moonlight All-Nite Diner ahead of her, and considers stopping for coffee, but she _really_ wants to sleep and she _really_ wants to see Cecil, so she keeps walking, even when the smell of ground coffee beans and no-wheat toast reaches her nose. The only thing that gives her pause is when she passes a man standing at the side of the road astride an abandoned motorbike. The man is staring at the sky, and he looks awed.

She snaps her fingers in front of his nose. “I’m all for observing the wonders of the Void, but I don’t think you wanna get run over.” she tells him. He nods, dazedly, and lets her move him over to the side of the road, where he won’t get hit, unless today is a Wednesday (which is a No Driving On Roads Day). But she’s reasonably sure that it’s a Friday, so, well.

She takes the motorbike. Might as well arrive in style.

 

 

There’s music playing when she enters the station again, bouncing up and down on the ball of her feet because she’s so _excited_ , excited to be _back,_ to be _here_ , to be _home_ \- and maybe she should feel ashamed about that with Mom and her baby brother at her house probably waiting - but she saw her name on the bloodstone intern circles a lifetime ago and ever since, this has been home.

Well, not just the intern circles - she's lined up to be the Voice when Cecil retires, which is, most likely, the only reason she hasn't yet died. Interning is a dangerous buisness, after all. But Night Vale seems to like her, or at least approve of her enough to let her prove her worth.

She won't be half as good as Cecil, when it's her time in the booth - but she'll leave her mark, you can be damn sure. 

The most recent intern stares at her as she stands there, beaming at the walls and floors and desks and stacks of papers like an idiot. She thinks she recognizes him.

“Hey.” she says, smiling, patting the dust off her clothes. “You're Jamie, right? The boss in?”

“Um . . . yeah.” the intern says. “Yeah to both.” He jerks his head in the vague direction of the back. “He’s, um, fixing the weather stacks. I think.”

“Thanks.” she says, smiling at him, and heads to the back, where the music is filtering out.

_And you’d better put your money where your Catholic mouth is –_

It’s shut off suddenly, and she hears muffled grumbling as something else is put on. Cecil talks to himself constantly, his voice always going, going, going in a soft mumble, and it’d be annoying if everyone hadn’t gotten used to it a long time ago. Dana wonders if someday she'll do it too - it's got to be _something_ to do with having most of Night Vale in your head. She's not aware of all the specifics, but from what she's gathered it's something you can turn on and off, seeing the News. Cecil just . . . doesn't. Either he doesn't want to, or he's afraid of missing something important, and talking is supposed to commit things to memory, right? Anyway, he never talks loud enough for anyone to distinguish words (it's more like a light buzz than anything, sort of quiet and comforting) and he doesn’t do it during conversation, just when he's distracted and by himself - though she knows the News is always blaring, _always_ - so no one ever minds. His voice fades into a pleasant hum and you forget he was ever even talking at all.

It's one of the nicest things about Cecil, really. The buzz of the News. It's homey.

The new record has frantic sounding violins. She leans in and feels a grin split her face.

Cecil is used to being looked at (by Station Management, by the Secret Police) when his back is turned, and he doesn’t notice her. He looks just the same as always, crooked tie and rolled up sleeves and glasses sliding halfway down his nose, hair artfully ruffled, headphones dangling from around his neck. He’s sorting records intently, muttering something about how interns just can _not_ follow instructions these days, and she almost laughs because wow, what _perfect_ timing.

A chuckle escapes and his head shoots up, turning to look at her, and an enormous grin appears like magic on his face. “Dana!”

She laughs and holds out her arms, and he stands up and comes over to hug her, picking her up and spinning her around. She drums her fists on his back.

“Cecil, put me down.” she laughs, shoving uselessly at his shoulders.

He does, with his usual flair, and straightens her shirt where he’s wrinkled it.

“God, I’m glad I’m back.” she says, conversationally. “I left my sweatshirt here.”

Cecil laughs again, surprised, and then his eyes narrow. “Dana, hold on.” he says in his Official Radio Announcer Voice. “Have you gone to see your mother yet?”

Shit. She knew she was forgetting something.

“Ceec, I wanna take a nap. If I go home, Mom’s just gonna want to talk to me for hours, and I do miss her, but _please,_ I need some hot chocolate and a nap first.”

Cecil sighs. “You should go to see your family.” he scolds.

“You are family, sort of.” she argues, which she knows will make him melt, the dork.

It works perfectly, and he rolls his eyes and wraps an arm around her shoulders. “I suppose I can spare the swivel chair for an hour or so.”

He leads her into the office. His desk is a mess, worse than when she left, which she doesn’t think was even theoretically possible.

“No hot chocolate, though.” he adds, and she sucks in  a disappointed breath.

“Really? You’re living like heathens here without me.”

“The entire town is in a state of shock.” Cecil agrees sarcastically. “Go to sleep. I’ll get you later.”

“Your desk is so sloppy.” she mutters, plopping into the chair. “I thought you were such a organized freak.”

Sure, before, the desk was chaos, but she was fairly sure it was _organized_ chaos. Now it’s just a mess.

Cecil is blushing, the back of his neck pink, and she takes a moment to wonder at that before passing out.

 

 

When she wakes up, it’s an hour and a half later, she is groggy, and the inside of her mouth feels like it’s sprouted fur.

She notes that someone has draped a jacket over her shoulders, which is nice of whoever it was. Probably it was Cecil, or maybe that intern, Jamie, but station management has been known to look after its own. They seem to like her - the only time she’s been in real trouble was the _Blurred Lines_ incident, and frankly? She deserved that. She hasn’t trusted Pandora Radio since.

(The damn thing played basically the world's worst, most disgusting song  _ever_ when she wasn't even listening to a radio station with anything _related_ to it. She was listening to, like, Marina. The little - she stuck to CDs after that when she had to sort the archives. Anyway, management had freaked. Say what you wanted, but Dana liked to think that song was universally hated.)

She stands and walks to the doorway of the sound booth and opens the door, then really fast closes it again, because _what the fuck did she just see._

Was that . . ?

She opens the door again to check.

Yep.

Carlos ( _the_ Carlos)  and Cecil. Making out. In the sound booth.

“Okay.” she mutters to herself. “Did _not_ need the visual.”

Jamie passes by, raises his eyebrows at her. “Nice jacket. Didn’t know you were on the football team.”

She glances down at the jacket, which, sure enough, is a letter jacket from the high school.

“Um.” she says, intelligently. “They’re making out. In the sound booth.”

Jamie sighs. “Again?”

Again? Freaking _again?_

“Break it up, could you?” Jamie asks. “I’ve got shit to do.”

“Sure.” she says, or maybe mumbles, she’s not sure which. It’s a lot to process.

“Jesus.” she mutters to herself. “I leave for a few months and everything goes crazy.”

She shakes her head, squares her shoulders, and goes in to stop Cecil from doing anything she wouldn’t do (in the _sound booth,_ for _Christ’s sake)_ just like the goddamn fantastic intern she is.

“Alright, break it up. You’ve got a show in ten minutes.”

“Exactly,” Cecil grins, “we still have ten minutes.”

“Slut.” Dana mutters. Cecil’s head snaps up and he lets go of Carlos’s lab coat.

“I’m sorry, _what_ was that?”

“I said you were a slut,” Dana smiles, “which is absolutely true, and you’re also a jerk, because you didn’t tell me you were _dating him_.” She inclines her head at Carlos, who looks mildly amused.

“ _Gods_ , Dana,” Cecil grumbles, dropping his head onto Carlos’s shoulder, “you were about to faint from exhaustion, I hardly thought it was _important._ ”

“Well, it was.” Dana says, feeling rather cheerful now that she doesn’t have to watch them tonguing each other. “And now you have ten minutes to tell me about it. You - ” She points at Carlos. “Out.”

Carlos - smart man - seems to realize Dana means business and picks up some files from the desk, gives Cecil a peck on the lips, and goes, offering a cheerful “nice to meet you.” to her as he does.

Getting in her good books. Clever.

“Must you interrupt _everything_?” Cecil complains, collapsing into the soundbooth desk, and Dana grins, unrepentant.

“It’s the least you can do, seeing as  the story of the _year_ broke while I wasn’t even here to report on it.” she tells him. “Now spill. Who asked who out?”

“He asked _me.”_ Cecil says giddily, switching from “you-interrupted-important-makeouts” to “oh-my-god- _Carlos”_ in about 2.83 seconds. “Can you _believe_ it? And his hair.” he adds, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s so _soft._ ”

Dana leans against the wall and chuckles.

“Okay, Ceec, tell me everything.”

She doesn’t end up going to see her mother until after the broadcast. Cecil can fill ten minutes with Carlos-talk, easy.

He mentions her on the broadcast, though, and so her mother’s probably, like, aware she’s alive now. 

 

 

Carlos comes to pick Cecil up, afterwards. Dana gives him a long, well-thought out talk about his intentions.

Cecil hides his face in his hands the whole time. Carlos makes a solemn vow to be good to him and keeps a straight, earnest face the entire time.

“I like him.” Dana declares, and Cecil groans.

“I don't need your _approval,_ Dana.”

“Careful now, Ceec, you’re starting to sound like a rebellious teenager.”

“Ugh, shut _up_.”

 

 

Dana bursts into Cecil’s office the next day with the air of someone who had seen a puppy die and was not eager to do so again.

“You - on the desk.” she sputters, and Cecil groans.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t - ”

“I’m the best intern you ever had, of course I _noticed._ ” Dana snaps, then takes a deep breath and points a finger at him.

“Okay. You are a,” she gives him a skeptical look, “ _somewhat_ responsible adult. I respect that. You can go around having sex all you want. But by the gods, Cecil, not on your desk, and if you slip up, which I know you will, _do not tell me to sleep there._ Are we clear?”

“I’m _so_ glad you’re back.” Cecil mutters as an answer, and a faint smile appears on Dana’s face. She winks at him.

“Yeah, you are.”

**Author's Note:**

> no but Dana and Cecil are totally bffs okay
> 
> I can feel it in my bones
> 
> (Also that stuff about intern circles and the News is mostly headcanon but c'mon guys, Cecil's gotta be some kind of psychic, he knows when shit's happening _when_ it's happening, right? There's got to be _something_ in his head for that. And Dana is _totally_ next in line. She's the only intern that's not dead, that counts as initiation, or something, right??)


End file.
